Coronation Street legend Bruce Jones found him caught up in a murder linked to the Yorkshire Ripper after finding a dead body while working on an allotment in the late 1970s.
The despicable crimes of notorious serial killer Peter Sutcliffe and those he was never charged with, return to the prime time spotlight on Wednesday, thanks to new ITV documentary Yorkshire Ripper: The Secret Murders.
The first show of its kind, the new documentary links more than 20 unsolved murders and attempted murders to Sutcliffe, who was found guilty of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980 in 1981, by looking at key evidence and trying to unearth just why he was never a suspect for them, despite his convictions.
Relative of the victims and eyewitnesses appear in The Secret Murders and among them is Bruce, the actor best known to millions of soap fans as Rovers Return regular Les Battersby.
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Ex Coronation Street star Bruce was a young man back in October 1997 and was going about his work on an allotment alongside a friend, when he discovered the brutally murdered body of Jean Jordan.
Recalling the harrowing events of of that day on camera for ITV, Bruce explained: "There was two of us, me and this older bloke who... managed to get an allotment which we did. We managed to acquire this big shed but it needed a brick base.
"I was like 'I'll go and get the bricks for the base, I'll just.. big building plot over there, I'll go and get bricks and that.'
"And it was on the way there, five times I'd, I'd gone, filled the barrow, come back. And the sixth time, there was this body.
“My mate came over, he couldn’t look at it, he was being ill.”
Jean, a young mother, only in her early twenties, had come down from Scotland to live in Manchester and was working as a sex worker.
The details of her death - blunt force trauma to the head, stab wounds, her clothing removed and body posed by her attacker, led investigating police in Manchester to believe that the Yorkshire Ripper, who was being hunted by West Yorkshire Police, was the culprit.
West Yorkshire Police weren't of the same opinion though and Bruce was quizzed by officers, with him revealing: "They asked me if I'd been to Yorkshire. I couldn't remember if I'd been to Yorkshire or not. ‘Where was I in Manchester on such and such a date?’ I didn't know.
"Why I had a hammer and big chisel and lump hammer in, in my wheelbarrow? That was to break the bricks up I needed for the base of the shed. Just question after question.
"Your mind does play tricks on you. It's like ‘where was I? Had I been to Yorkshire? No, I've never been to Yorkshire.’ Right from the minute you find that body your mind is going faster than you can think. And no, no, no I wasn't there. I wasn't there...you know never been there. Never been there.
“And in the end, they come in and tell you, ‘Get dressed,’ and we'll run you home and that was it.”
Despite all the evidence pointing in his direction, including a £5 found in Jean's pocket which was traced back to a firm where Sutcliffe, who died in Durham hospital in 2020, worked as a driver, he was discounted as a suspect, even after three police interviews.
Yorkshire Ripper: The Secret Murders is on ITV at 9pm on Februry 23. Part two follows at the same time on Thursday.
Viewers can watch both episodes on ITVHub
